Huawei's confident march into western smartphone markets continues with the Ascend P8, which is set to be unveiled in London April 15. With the Ascend Mate 7 and the Ascend P7, Huawei proved that it can mix it up with the best phones out there from more established manufacturers, despite lower price tags. We're excited to see what the Chinese smartphone giant can pull out of the bag with the Ascend P8.

With the Ascend P8 just around the corner, this is the place to find the latest news, specs and rumors surrounding the phone.

Huawei Ascend P8 price and release date

The Huawei Ascend P8 release date is yet to be confirmed, but the phone will be officially unveiled April 15 in London. AndroidPIT will be attending the event and reporting on the Ascend P8 as soon as it's unveiled, so stay tuned for that.

Likewise, the Ascend P8 price will be confirmed April 15. Based on its predecessor, the Ascend P7, we're expecting it to cost around 600 USD or 449 GBP, though GizmoChina suggests that the P8 could come in below the 500 USD mark.

Huawei Ascend P8 design

The Ascend P8 design has been revealed on the website of TENAA, China's national regulatory body for smartphones and wireless devices. It's not a dissimilar-looking device to the mid-range Ascend G7, with an aluminum rear and glass front. The rear camera looks like it will be in the top corner of the device, which I mentioned in my review of the Ascend G7 makes it prone to big fingers sometimes covering part of the lens during photos.

We loved the fingerprint scanner on the back of the Huawei Ascend Mate 7, and we really hope to see it make a return in the Ascend P8. At first glance, we can't see the scanner on the back of the alleged Ascend P8, unless it's hiding under the Huawei logo, which would place it in the same position it was on the Ascend Mate 7.

According to @Onleaks, the Ascend P8 will be just 6.6mm thin, making it 0.1mm thicker than the Ascend P7, but still one of the slimmest phones around. With expected dimensions of 144.9 x 71.9 x 6.6 mm, it will be broadly similar in size to the Samsung Galaxy S6.

A teaser for the Ascend P8 was released earlier in March, depicting the number '8' four times. In the images, we see symbols of a cracked screen, a camera and currency. While I'm by no means trained symbologist, I'd venture to guess that these imply that the Ascend P8 will have a durable screen (possibly Gorilla Glass 4), an improved camera and come in at a more affordable price than other flagships.

Huawei Ascend P8 display

The Ascend P8 will have a 5.2-inch 1920 x 1080 LCD display, which is slightly larger and with a slightly lower PPI (pixels-per-inch) count than its predecessor. This will make the screen reasonably large among flagships, and if the Ascend P8 comes in at the expected lower price to its rivals, then we'll think it's reasonable that Huawei didn't opt for a QHD resolution.

Huawei Ascend P8 software

Being a 2015 flagship, the Ascend P8 is certain to come with a version on Android Lollipop. This is likely to be layered over by the latest version of Huawei's Emotion UI (EMUI), which is currently 3.0. We may yet see some surprises in this area, but would be fairly happy with EMUI 3.0, which is a smooth, minimal interface that complements Android nicely.

Huawei Ascend P8 camera

One thing we loved about the Ascend P7 was its 8MP front-facing selfie camera, and it's looking likely that the P8 is going to keep things as they were on that front. The rear camera is also expected to stay the same at 13 MP, though there has been talk of a higher-quality lens and better software for it. If Huawei delivers on these two upgrades, then the camera could prove to be much better than its predecessor, despite sharing the same megapixel count.

Huawei Ascend P8 specs

The Huawei Ascend P8 has received the go-ahead from TENAA. As such, listed in the table below are the specs that we strongly believe will feature in the Ascend P8 when it lands.

The biggest internal changes are in the processor, which has now been boosted to an octa-core Kirin 930, featuring tweaked variants of the Cortex-A53 cores, known as Cortex-A53E, capable of clocking up to 2.0 GHz. Huawei said on Weibo that it opted for this option over the Cortex_A57s, because it's much more battery-efficient.

Huawei Ascend P8

Huawei Ascend P7

OS

Android 5.x Lollipop, EMUI

Android 4.4.2 KitKat, EMUI 3.0

Display

5.2-inch 1920 x 1080, 424 ppi

5-inch LCD, 1920 x 1080 pixels, 441 ppi

CPU

Kirin 930, octa-core, 2.0 GHz

HiSilicon Kirin 910, quad-core, 1.8 GHz

RAM

3 GB

2 GB

Internal memory

32 GB+ microSD

16 + microSD

Battery

-

2500 mAh (non-removable)

Camera

13 MP

13 MP, LED flash, auto-focus (rear), 8 MP (front)

Connectivity

HSPA, 4G, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi

HSPA, 4G, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi

Dimensions

144.9 x 71.9 x 6.6 mm?

139.8 x 68.8 x 6.5 mm

Weight

-

124 g

Are you interested in Huawei's inbound flagship, or are you not yet sold on this up-and-coming manufacturer? If you're a little unsure about Huawei, then it might intrigue you to know that it might be manufacturing the next Nexus phone for Google.

We at AndroidPIT have been impressed with Huawei's flagship phones so far, and will be at the Ascend P8 unveiling in London April 15, delivering you the low-down on the phone as soon as it's released.